WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Delta Air Lines ( DAL )

said on Friday it will not use artificial intelligence to set

personalized ticket prices for passengers after facing sharp

criticism from U.S. lawmakers.

Last week, Democratic Senators Ruben Gallego, Mark Warner

and Richard Blumenthal said they believed the Atlanta-based

airline would use AI to set individual prices, which would

"likely mean fare price increases up to each individual

consumer's personal 'pain point.'"

Delta has said it plans to deploy AI-based revenue

management technology across 20% of its domestic network by the

end of 2025 in partnership with Fetcherr, an AI pricing company.

"There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or

plans to use that targets customers with individualized prices

based on personal data," Delta told the senators in a letter on

Friday, seen by Reuters. "Our ticket pricing never takes into

account personal data."

The senators cited a comment in December by Delta President

Glen Hauenstein that the carrier's AI price-setting technology

is capable of setting fares based on a prediction of "the amount

people are willing to pay for the premium products related to

the base fares."

Last week, American Airlines ( AAL ) CEO Robert Isom said

using AI to set ticket prices could hurt consumer trust.

"This is not about bait and switch. This is not about

tricking," Isom said on an earnings call, adding "talk about

using AI in that way, I don't think it's appropriate. And

certainly from American, it's not something we will do."

Delta said airlines have used dynamic pricing for more

than three decades, in which pricing fluctuates based on a

variety of factors like overall customer demand, fuel prices and

competition but not a specific consumer's personal information.

"Given the tens of millions of fares and hundreds of

thousands of routes for sale at any given time, the use of new

technology like AI promises to streamline the process by

which we analyze existing data and the speed and scale at which

we can respond to changing market dynamics," Delta's letter

said. It added that AI can "assist our analysts with pricing by

reducing manual processes, accelerating analysis and improving

time to market for pricing adjustments."